Week after Christmas

My parents surprised us and arrived at our house on Christmas night! We loved giving them big hugs and showing them our Christmas gifts. Another surprise happened when Alex and Bryan called and asked if we'd like to meet them for lunch! They bought a new car in Missouri and were driving to Utah. We loved sharing Thai food with them. 

I started a quilt this year and had a goal to finish it during my 40th year. My mom loves projects so it was a perfect project to do together. I'll cherish this quilt more than I realized when I started it. I loved watching my kids sit beside my mom and help with the quilt. Then my mom hand sewed the edges. I feel so close to her when I see the quilt and think about the time she took to patch the quilt together. In a way, it's symbolic of the time she took to love and nurture me piece by piece. Now I'm dreaming of making 4 quilts so I can give each of my children one with my mom's love sewn into it. 

My parents stayed the night with our kids while Aaron and I went down to Kansas City and stayed on the Plaza. We had free hotel points since Aaron traveled so much this year. We enjoyed the plaza lights, shopped, ate dinner together and grabbed hot chocolate on the walk back to our hotel. Aaron planned this for my 40th birthday! I love experience together for gifts so this was perfect. 

My parents then took the boys on an overnight trip to St. Louise. They loved exploring the Arch and spending quality time with my parents. 

I put all our Christmas stuff away and felt so emotional as I looked back at the years of visiting Santa at Bass Pro. 

We did get some devastating news that my Uncle Harman Hostetter passed away of a heart attack. Harman is younger than my mom so the news was shocking to us all. He also had open heart surgery a few months ago and the drs. were amazed at how quickly he recovered. Since my parents were here and my kids were still on a break from school, I decided to drive to Colorado for the funeral. My dad left on Saturday to drive home before the funeral and my mom stayed the weekend with us before we left on New Year's Day. 

We had already planned to host a New Year's Eve party so we enjoyed dinner and games with our friends to ring in the new year. Our party ended at 8 p.m. :)